Jungle Vision Trip to Pucallpa and Getting Ready for Christmas in Lima

10 December 2017

We traveled into the hot and steamy jungle of Pucallpa this week to complete a vision project that was started 3 years ago. This project should have been completed long ago, but life in the jungle proceeds at a different pace. We are just happy that more than 1,000 children will be able to see better now with the donation of exams and glasses that we are making.

More about the vision project later, but first . . .

Jungle City of Pucallpa

Pucallpa sits on the banks of the Ucayali River, one of the two rivers that form the Amazon. At this point, the river is over half a mile wide. A few hundred miles north, it meets up with the Marañón River and then the name changes to the Amazon River. The next major city on the river, Iquitos, is 4 days away by boat.

The Ucayali River is at the heart of Pucallpa, and jungle completely surrounds the city. The river is so wide at this point that there are no bridges - everything happens on the river itself. 

Pucallpa is fairly isolated. Although we were only 70 miles from the border with Brazil, there are no roads to get to Brazil. It would take weeks with a jungle guide and machetes to hack your way through to Brazil.

Half of  Peru is covered in jungle, but only 5 percent of the population lives in the jungle. Lack of roads and bridges makes travel impossible through the jungle except by boat. In Pucallpa, we were closer to Brazil than Lima, but the jungle would make it nearly impossible to get there. 

Long and narrow powered canoes with sun shade are the preferred ways of getting around in the Peruvian jungle.

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Fleets of larger boats haul in the produce from the jungle or provide ferry service all the way into Brazil.

Peru built a road to Pucallpa in 1945, but it is a very long drive from Lima over the Andes Mountains and through the jungle to get there. (Thank goodness we just flew in from Lima).

We strolled along the riverside one day after work. It is an interesting place, given all the action from fruit sellers and the cargo coming in and going out.

Much of the action in Pucallpa takes place at the riverside, where people setup shop and sell just about anything.

We were a little nervous down at the riverside area. There were lots of people down there that looked like they had spent a little too much time out in the jungle. We tried to stay away from characters like the guy below, especially ones carrying long sticks.

This wild-looking guy was roaming the streets just a block from the river with a look on his face like he had just stepped out of the jungle!

Because Pucallpa is in the rain forest, it rains almost every day. Further in from the river, houses and businesses all seemed to have corrugated metal roofs to deal with all the rain. Here is a view of the city from the top of our hotel.

Corrugated metal roofs cover the city of Pucallpa. It is the preferred roofing material in the jungle.

At the docks of Pucallpa there was a constant buzz of business as boatloads of bananas and other jungle fruits were brought ashore. We only dared to go to the docks during daylight hours given the rough nature of the people there. Even then, we felt uneasy given the stares we were getting. During the three days we spent in Pucallpa, we were the only white people we ever saw.

Flow of goods at the docks of Pucallpa.

We'd never seen so many bananas in one place, all fresh right out of the jungle.

A pedestrian-only street not far from the docks made us feel like we were back in familiar territory. The city had done a nice job of building up the street and shopping zone, complete with a clear stream down the middle to signify the Ucayali River that gives the city a reason to exist.

Shopping zone near the Ucayali River - complete with its own 'river' running down the middle.

Pucallpa has a few modern shopping malls and city buildings, but you never forget that you are surrounded by the jungle when you are in the city.

Welcome sign in front of the National Theatre and Pucallpa Municipal Government buildings.

Vision Project in Pucallpa

The vision project in Pucallpa was started in 2014 with the donation of surgical equipment and a training visit of a US ophthalmologist. The final part of the project was the donation of exams and glasses for children, but this part got put on hold for several years. After many phone calls and much coordination, the government leaders finally organized the vision campaign and we moved forward this week.

Children were pre-screened (mostly) and those with vision problems were brought in from around the region. Note that about 10,000 children were pre-screened to come up those that actually needed glasses (about 10 percent of those screened needed glasses).

The campaign lasted 5 days and 1,050 children were examined. The company we hired is making the glasses now and they will be delivered in the next two weeks.

The company we hired in Lima brought the optometrists, opticians, and all their equipment out here to the jungle. The campaign got underway and each day up to 250 children were given their exams.

A team of three optometrists we hired in Lima could handle up to 40 children per hour.

The refractometer shown here provided a close approximation of the prescription needed for each eye.

After the refractometer, each child was given a detailed exam to confirm the prescription. This team was really good at dealing with large numbers of children in this campaign.

We had planned on only performing 950 exams, based on the pre-screening, but teachers identified another 100 kids who couldn't see the board or computer screens. When we did their detailed exams, we found that many of this additional number who had never been pre-screened had really bad vision. At the end of the 5-day campaign, the number of kids had grown to 1,050 total.

Hundreds of children needing glasses were brought in for the exams. Here is the line of kids picking out their frames.

When kids can pick out their own frames they are more likely to wear their glasses.

While the kids waited in line for their turn, we had time to chat with them. I think we were the first foreigners that they had ever spoken with and maybe the first white people, also. We did not see any other white people during our time there.

A group of kids would gather around us and just chat rapid fire, so excited to have this chance to speak with foreigners. Sandy sat on a chair and was surrounded by excited kids for several hours, all speaking in Spanish. After 3 hours of this, Sandy got up and had to move. With both hands on the sides of her head, keeping it from exploding, she said, "My brain is really tired of speaking Spanish!"

Kids surrounded Sandy, just like the pied piper of little children. They stared at her and said things like, "We like your blue eyes," "We like your hair," "How long do people live in your country", etc., etc., etc. It was a fun time for the kids.

The kids kept asking me where I was from. I asked them to guess, and almost no one said USA. They were all guessing things like France, Germany, and Brazil.

I was sweating like crazy while we visited with the kids. For them, it was a cool day. I showed the kids and their teachers this winter picture we took in Utah back in January before coming here. Everyone was amazed. No one had ever been in snow before.

All were amazed by this picture in the snow. None had ever seen snow in person.

And so this long-delayed campaign to get glasses is finally moving to completion. More than a thousand kids in the jungle (many from very poor families) will now be able to see.

Cute Peruvian kids who will now be able to see the blackboard or read a book with our donation of glasses.

Christmas in Lima

It is a little strange having Christmas in a place with no snow. In fact, this is getting to be the hottest part of the year in the Southern Hemisphere. They say Santa changes into shorts when he gets south of the equator. We got to walk around downtown Lima on Saturday with friends and enjoy the Christmas lights.

Michael Trejo (who we work with) and his wife Nadia joined us for a dinner of 'anticuchos' in Central Lima before seeing the Christmas lights. We just sat in a plaza and ate our street food, enjoying the nice weather. 

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'Anticuchos' are beef hearts, a real Peruvian specialty. We were afraid to try these when we first came here, but they are incredibly delicious and packed with flavor. They always come skewered on sticks like this no matter whether you get them on the street or in fancy restaurants. 

After our dinner of anticuchos, we roamed the historic downtown and Plaza de Armas while enjoying a glimpse of what Christmas is like in Peru.

Christmas lights around the water fountains - it never freezes here so the fountains run year round.

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Santa's sleigh (actually a wagon because there is no snow) setup in front of the main cathedral.

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Central Lima - lit up with Christmas lights.

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Quartet of mechanized Santas. They look a little warm for this time of year in South America - It is time to change into shorts, Santa!

Peruvians know who Santa Claus is, but the name they usually use here is 'Papa Noel' which means something like 'Father Christmas'.

A swirl of lights made us almost feel like we were back home.

Christmas Office Celebrations

Our Area Church Office had a Christmas party this week with a catered lunch and program (in which we participated). Our part of the program consisted in a hilarious sketch in front of about 200 Peruvians where we played the new ditsy Americans. Everyone in the audience howled as I used my absolute worst Spanish asking about all the 'Huaycos' taking place, not knowing what the word meant. Huayco is actually a Quechua Indian word (not Spanish) for flash floods.

Crazy sketch at the Christmas party. Everyone was howling with laughter at the newby Americans speaking awful Spanish.

As the sketch progressed, I put on my worst American accent while asking if a Huayco was the 'rat without tail' that they eat here (which is guinea pig), or if it was a giant hole in the ground, or why it wasn't in my Google Translate. Given the laughter and rounds of applause, I think we were a hit. We followed up with a Christmas tune I played on my Irish pennywhistle, The Little Drummer Boy, and a short devotional talk Sandy gave in Spanish.

Michael Trejo on guitar, me on Irish Pennywhistle, and Sandy giving a short Christmas devotional talk in Spanish.

The party and dinner were a nice chance to unwind. Even without the snow, it helped get us into the Christmas spirit.

The Area Church Office Christmas Party

Michael Trejo and Lily Davalos joined us for the dinner.

Our Welfare and Humanitarian Services team at the Christmas Party.

If there is a consolation to the dry and warm winter here, it is that we can see snow when we fly from Lima to the jungle over the Andes Mountains. Last week we flew over the Cordillera Blanca range in the Andes and saw snow-capped 19,000 ft. mountain tops peeking out of the clouds to show us that there is snow somewhere in Peru.

Mountain peaks at over 19,000 ft. elevation poking through the clouds - it will be a White Christmas somewhere in Peru this year.

And so we finished another week and now pack our bags again for another trip to the jungle. This week we head up north for a delivery of humanitarian aid in a poor school in Nauta near Iquitos on the Amazon River. Hold on for another adventure!